I was shocked to learn that the infestation of cicadas currently darkening my life is expected to last until the end of June. I don’t know how much worse it can get. Outside my house, dead cicadas lie everywhere, a few feet apart. The air is filled with them flying about. And the sound of their constant screech fades only at night.
The cicadas’ presence prompted me to look up the old testament story of the ten plagues that God visited upon the Egyptians to force them to release the Jews to travel to what is today Israel. Those plagues were water turned into blood, frogs, lice, gnats, diseased livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness for three days, and killing of firstborn sons.
Any one of those is far worse than the influx of the cicadas. So I can comfort myself that God is not punishing us. For all that, the cicadas are becoming more of a curse as each day passes. Their demise and disappearance can’t come too soon for me.
Tom Glenn, Writer 